Good News—HR Wages Are on the Rise!

In recent releases of the PayScale Index, we’ve noticed some continuous trends. As expected, IT jobs are on the rise, tech hubs as Seattle and San Francisco are thriving, the transportation industry has BOOMED. Sadly, oil and gas jobs keep tanking (get it?). But one promising trend that we see creeping up is the consistent increase in HR wages. Since 2014, we have seen HR wages rise—even rising slightly above national wages.

Here’s a little more information about the PayScale Index: since 2006, PayScale has tracked quarterly compensation trends—including changes in total cash compensation for full-time, private industry employees in the United States. The PayScale Index has not been adjusted for inflation and is based on actual wages. “Human Resource Jobs” is included in the index as a job category, which enables us to pinpoint the rising trend in pay for HR professionals.

Historically, we have seen that HR wages are typically aligned with the National Index. Since Q1 2014, HR jobs have pulled ahead of the national index—meaning they have experienced greater growth. Although we see a slight dip in Q3 2014, HR wages have generally increased since Q4 2013—up nearly 6% since that quarter.

In the Q2 2016 PayScale release, we see that HR jobs have a year over year percentage change increase in pay of 2%! That’s great news for our HR friends. Though the increase not quite as impressive as the one we have seen in transportation jobs (4%!), we believe there is reason to pay attention to the steady increase in HR wages.

Curious to see how trends in HR wages compare to trends in your city and industry? Check out the interactive PayScale Index, updated with Q2 2016 data. Interested in the Q2 2016 PayScale Index highlights? Download the report.

Do you think we will see HR wages continue to rise in 2016 and 2017? Let us know your predictions in the comments below!